Security force, role of ex-king snag talks

Nora FitzGeraldSpecial to the Tribune

The heady optimism of the first day of talks between Afghanistan's rival factions yielded Wednesday to the reality of differences as the Northern Alliance disagreed with the other delegates on the terms of the interim government, the way it needs to be secured and the involvement of the country's former king.

James Dobbins, the special U.S. envoy to Afghanistan, said on the opening day of the UN-sponsored talks outside Bonn that there was a growing consensus that the former king, Mohammed Zahir Shah, 87, could serve as the symbolic head of an interim body.

But the alliance made it clear Wednesday that it would not automatically accept the former king as an intermediate figurehead.

"We don't believe in the role of a person and personalities. We believe in a system, for example, the loya jirga," the Northern Alliance's interior minister, Mohammad Yunis Qanooni, said, referring to a tribal council.

The Northern Alliance also rejected the idea of a multinational security force. However, U.S. officials said the alliance is willing to allow foreign forces for the pursuit of Al Qaeda terrorists and for humanitarian efforts.

"We don't feel a need for an outside force. There is security in place," Qanooni said Wednesday. The alliance said any security force should be composed entirely of Afghans.

Most of the delegates from the three remaining groups hope for a neutral, multinational, United Nations-led force.

"Peace is not possible without neutral forces, and there are no neutral forces in Afghanistan. There are only Northern Alliance forces, and they are not neutral," said Anwar-ul-Haq Ahadi, a delegate from the Pakistan-backed delegation.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan expressed guarded optimism about the talks during a visit to the White House. The four groups will bear the brunt of the responsibility for making the next Afghan government work, he said.

"The challenge is theirs," Annan said. "They have an historic opportunity to put the past behind them and form a broad-based government that will be loyal to the Afghan people and respect its international obligations."

The delegates at the talks are speaking of securing a peace that is not a reality yet. There is a lawlessness to parts of Afghanistan: Foreign journalists have been killed in recent days, and UN officials and Amnesty International, among others, have raised concerns about the deaths of civilians and captured soldiers in battles to push the Taliban from its strongholds.

The conference, scheduled for three to five days, could last up to a week, organizers acknowledged.

"We have to decide whether we should not help them move along and overcome obstacles," deputy UN envoy Francesc Vendrell said.

But Qanooni said the conference most likely will return to Afghanistan to hammer out the who's who of an intermediary Cabinet.

"As far as the next round of talks in Afghanistan is concerned," he said, "we would like to have them organized and held in the historic city of Kabul."